


Walk Away

by Iben



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Female John Blake, Rule 63, mention of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 13:34:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3328379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iben/pseuds/Iben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bane comes home, but connecting with people is not so easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Away

It had rained most of the way and water drops stained the bus windows. The green of the slopes stood out, almost luminescent against the gray. Bane watched the scenery roll by, his mind as blank as he could force it to be.

He got off at the bus station downtown. Graffiti covered every surface and broken glass littered the ground. If he'd known the bus would stop in this part of town, he would have told Talia not to meet him, but there she was. She looked small, older than he remembered her, in a rust-colored coat and sensible shoes.

She smiled and looked as if she was fighting back tears when she saw him. As soon as he got close enough she pulled him into a hug. He leaned down, hugged her back. She was so soft.

“My little brother, who got so big” she said.

He was older than she, by close to ten years, but she called him little brother anyway. She let him go, her gaze flickered to the scar that cut across his mouth and jaw, and she forced a smile. 

“Come on, let's go home, so you can meet the troops.” 

She had a small, red car. Bane watched the city as they drove. It seemed so big, so bursting with life. Almost scary in its limitlessness. 

Talia lived in a two-story row-house. A couple of stone steps led up to the front door. The entrance was cramped, shoes and wellington boots in a pile just inside the door, an overflowing coat-rack. 

“Sorry about the mess” Talia said. Bane managed a small smile. 

Her husband, Bruce, shook Bane's hand and greeted him in a friendly, maybe a little too genial, manner. The kids, the boy eight, the girl six, stared, until Talia told them to pick up their toys, or there wouldn't be room for their uncle to sleep on the couch. 

Only the smallest one, not yet two, was unfazed. Bane didn't know what to do as she came up to him, handed him things, pieces of Lego, stuffed toys. Bruce made coffee, Talia put sandwiches on a plate on the kitchen table. 

“You got any plans?” Bruce asked. “Any idea of what you're going to do now?”

Now that you're out. Not land myself inside again, Bane thought, but didn't say it. 

“Find a job” he said. 

The coffee was strong, tasted good. 

“You can stay here as long as you need to” Talia said. 

“Thank you.”

The little one extended her arms. 

“She wants you to pick her up” Talia said. 

Bane did, although unsure if he really should. She weighed close to nothing. Impossibly small and soft, she sat on his knee, busying herself with her toys, talking nonsense. 

Talia and Bruce were both smiling, making him feel a bit self-conscious.

“Maybe get one or two of these yourself?” Bruce suggested. 

Bane didn't reply, feeling bothered. The little one turned around, showed him one of her toys, and he smiled a little at her. 

When evening came Talia made up the couch for him. 

“It's not very comfortable” she said. 

“It's fine.”

She looked at him, an expression on her face as if she wanted to say something, but instead she just smiled a little.

“Good night” she said.

The couch wasn't comfortable, it was narrow and lumpy, but that wasn't the reason he couldn't fall asleep. Being in a real home felt alien. In the faint light from the window he could see the outline of the TV, the clutter of things on the table, the clothes horse next to the stairs. 

He was forty, but had never had a place like this himself. It was nice for Talia, he was happy she had all this, but he felt out of place. 

He woke up to the sound of shrill voices. Someone hushing. He sat up and the older girl, Deena, he knew her name, came up to him.

“What happened to your face?”

Talia showed up in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Deena, it's rude to ask questions like that” she scolded. “Go get ready.”

Bane got up. Talia was looking at him.

“It's okay. You can ask” he said to her.

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.”

“There's coffee, if you want. I need to get the kids to school. I left a key on the table for you.”

It got quiet when they had all left. He wasn't used to that kind of silence. Inside it was never quiet. Always noises, sometimes muffled, sometimes loud. Sometimes inside your head. 

He went for a run and took in the neighborhood as he did so. He found a gym, down near the river, and went inside. It smelled like all gyms of that kind did, of sweaty boxing gloves and whatever that smell was that a lot of men gathered in a small space produced. 

He paid cash for a month, put down Talia's address when he filled in his membership slip. He didn't have a lot of money, earning some was a high priority, but not working out wasn't an option. 

A couple of days went by in pretty much the same fashion. He was woken by the kids in the morning. They weren't as scared of him anymore, came into the living room and turned on the TV, pushed at his feet or knees to make room for themselves on the couch. 

“I don't have much yet, but I'll pay for the food” he said to Talia, but she pushed away the bills he offered her.

“No. You probably need that a lot more than I do. We're all right. Don't think like that.”

He wasn't comfortable sponging off his sister and her family. He had looked for a job, but finding something was probably going to be difficult. Not that many places wanted to hire a felon. He didn't have much on his resume, a couple of stints in prison, the latest one four years, and the rest didn't look good in print, either. 

He had made a choice, coming here, an attempt at cleaning up his act. He should have thought further ahead. Bruce was a pencil-pusher, Talia worked part-time as a dentist's receptionist. He couldn't live off them. He needed to make some money. 

“Hello?” The voice coming from the entrance was female. “Anyone home?”

The big kids, Deena and James, came bouncing down the stairs, screaming excitedly. Little Emma came waddling out from the kitchen too. 

The woman who came into the living room moments later was young, probably in her twenties, and wore jeans and a leather jacket. The kids were clamoring around her. 

“Okay, enough with the screaming” Talia said.

The woman's gaze fell on Bane.

“Hi” she said. “Robin.”

She held out her hand, smiling. 

“Bruce's sister” Talia explained. “This is my brother, Bane.”

Bane shook Robin's hand, it was small and warm, and nodded a little. She had dark eyes, and dark hair in a pony-tail. 

“The mysterious brother” she said. “I wasn't sure you actually existed.” 

Bane didn't know what to say. He liked dark-haired girls, and she was really pretty, and he felt inexplicably self-conscious.

Robin took the kids out to the small garden at the back of the house, kicked a ball around with them. Bane could see them through the window and hear their voices through the french-doors that stood open in the living room.

Talia made dinner, Bane helped her chop up the vegetables, and then Bruce came home. The dinner table was lively. 

“I guess this is kind of inconvenient” Robin said. “But they are fixing the bathroom in my flat, and I wondered if I could stay here a little while?” 

Talia and Bruce looked at each other, communicating in the silent language of married couples. 

“Well, there is the couch in the dining room” Bruce said then. 

The dining room was a cluttered room, adjacent to the kitchen, that seemed to be rarely used. Crammed in by one of the walls was an old couch, even worse worn than the one in the living room. 

“Yes” Talia said. “If you can make do with that?”

“Sure.”

“You can take the one in the living room” Bane said to Robin. He wished he'd had someplace else to go. 

Robin laughed and shook her head. “By the TV, where there is Teletubbies and Dora the Explorer every morning? I'm not that stupid.” She was smiling at him, and he felt a vague flutter in the pit of his stomach. 

“In the dining room you can at least close the door, but I can't guarantee it'll be quiet enough for you to sleep, if you have worked a night shift” Talia said.

“That's all right. Thanks.”

“Robin is a police officer” Talia explained. 

Bane felt as if his entire criminal career was stamped on his forehead just then. 

“Yup” Robin said. “Bad pay, terrible work-hours and more bad coffee than any one person should have to endure.”

She already knew about him. She had to. Either Bruce or Talia must have told her, at some point. Still, he kind of wished she'd had some other job, any other job, even though he knew it didn't really matter.

He tried to stay clear of her. Pretended, even to himself, that he hadn't seen her exit the dining room in the mornings wearing only a t-shirt and panties, and that he hadn't seen those long, lean legs. 

He went to the gym, punched the bags hard, and he heard about an underground boxing match. He'd done that before, to earn some money, he could do it again. Just enough to keep him afloat until he found something else, something legit. He could put some of it towards Talia, not take no for an answer this time. He was still fast, punched harder than most men.

He couldn't help himself, he watched Robin. The kids loved her, she was easy-going, laughed and played with them. Sometimes she caught him looking, and he thought he must imagine it, how her gaze lingered, on his shoulders or his arms, or even his face.

He was lying on the couch, the house dark and quiet, everyone asleep, when she came out of the dining room. He sat up when she came towards him. 

In the dark, in the silence, she straddled his lap. Kissed him, right on his ruined mouth. It felt like a dream, her soft breasts under his hands, her warm skin. She had a condom. 

He'd been inside her, what, less than a minute, when he came. Embarrassment flooded him. The moment after, as she moved off him, was horrendously awkward. There was nothing he could say that would make it less so. If he were to explain that he hadn't been with anyone in four years, it would only sound like an excuse. 

He felt angry with himself, even more so the next day. He headed out early, for a run, to avoid any and all family members. He had to move out of there.

He heard the soft crunch of steps behind him. When he turned his head he saw her, pony-tail and all, in running shoes and sportswear. 

“Can you stop running?” she said, and he slowed down, then came to a stop, because not doing so would be too childish. “Listen” she said, and he didn't really want to look at her, still thought her so pretty. “That whole femme fatale routine, it isn't really me. I was only trying to impress you. I'm sorry. And, you know... it's okay, I should have said that.”

He looked at her then. She was making a kind of apologetic face. It was gutsy of her to come after him today, rather than avoid him the way he had her. 

“You don't have anything to apologize for” he said.

“I feel like I jumped you.”

He shook his head a little. “It's been a long time” he said then, even though he'd told himself not to say that.

“Okay.” She pulled her shoulders up a little. “I know you've been in prison. So we don't have to pretend that I don't. Unless you want to.”

She smiled a little. 

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-five.”

“You should probably stay away from me.”

When he started running again she followed.

“What if I don't want to?” she said. 

She kept the same pace as him, but running was a good excuse for not saying anything. He didn't know what to say.

Nothing else happened on the couch. Bane earned some money, winning his fights, and made Talia take some of it, although her eyes told him exactly what she thought of the bruises on his face.

“It's boxing” he said. “Nothing bad.”

“Nothing bad? That doesn't look like nothing bad to me.”

She didn't know bad. 

He saw Robin again because she invited him over to her place. The bathroom was fixed and she had moved back home. He should have said no, but he didn't, and he ended up having dinner with her. It felt weird, unfamiliar, but good in a way he couldn't deny. Even more so when he helped her with the washing up and she stood so close he could smell her. 

“You look like you could pick me up, easy-peasy” she said and ran her hands up along his arms. He did that then and she smiled, wrapped her arms and legs around him. Her eyes were so dark. “You could put me down in the bedroom, if you want to?” she said.

This time they went slower, exploring each other's bodies. Her skin was so smooth and warm, and she smelled great. He kissed her, almost forgetting his self-consciousness about the scar, and felt her hands on him. She held his gaze when he touched her, carefully slipping his fingers inside, feeling the warmth, the wetness. 

When he pushed inside her he closed his eyes for a second, it felt so good. He paused.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“More than okay, you feel great.”

She wrapped her legs around him, her hands clutching at his back as he moved. He lasted longer this time, had the pleasure of feeling, hearing and seeing her come first. 

Afterward they lay still for a moment. She caressed his chest, moving her hand slowly back and forth. Then she propped her head up on her hand, elbow resting on the bed, and looked at him. She lifted her hand to his face, traced the scar lightly with one finger and he turned his head away.

“Sorry” she said. “When did you get it?”

“A long time ago.”

He shouldn't be here, with her. He looked at her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yeah, why shouldn't I be?” She smiled. 

He should go. 

“Are you all right?” she asked. 

He nodded a little. She was twenty-five. She was happy, so full of life. She was lovely. She was naked, here with him. He couldn't help but to feel as though he'd done something wrong. Something terrible.

He got up and began to dress. 

“Are you leaving?” she said. 

She got up too, rushing to dress at the same pace as him. 

“Why?” she said. “God, I can't believe you'd be such a bastard.”

“You don't know me!”

“No!”

He looked at her and she looked back, her face a mixture of disbelief and hurt. He'd caused that. He felt a bottomless pit opening up inside him. 

In the back of his mind were flashes of memories, of being held down as men thrusted inside him. He pushed those thoughts away.

She wasn't upset because he'd hurt her like that. They'd been together and it had been so sweet, felt so good. But she was young and beautiful and he was neither. He'd made himself big and strong, years ago, and it left him with nothing else. He couldn't pull her into that. 

“Go then” she said. “Be that coward.”

He won a couple of more boxing matches. It wasn't enough, though. He couldn't make enough money that way, and he felt he had to move out of Talia's. He called Barsad. 

Decking a couple of men, holding the rest at gunpoint. The guys in the crew all did what Bane told them to, because they always did. No hiccups. The guy who had hired them was happy. And Bane had enough money to get himself a room. Talia was angry with him, even though he lied perfectly well about where the money had come from. 

None of it felt good, though. Not ending up back inside was his number one priority. It had to be. Four years was a long time when you were locked up, even though no one thought to bother him now. He had made a name for himself, knew the right people. He wasn't the easy target he'd been when he first did time twenty years ago. 

Talia came to see him. Her gaze trailed the room. 

“This is better than our couch?” she said. He didn't reply. “I have heard about a job” she went on. “It's at a bar, bartender, bouncer, or some combination. A friend of mine, her father owns it, and he's willing to hire you, despite you having a record.”

Bane didn't say anything. 

“Please, Bane” Talia said. “Please don't do this. Not when I've finally got you back, after all these years.”

“Maybe you should ask yourself what it is that came back.”

She shook her head. “You're my brother, you'll always be my brother. My sweet, sweet brother.”

She saw something different in him, something he wasn't sure was even there anymore. 

“At least consider taking the job” she said. “And come to dinner.”

He did go to Talia's and Bruce's for dinner, and Robin was there. She avoided looking at him. Focused on the kids. Bane wished he hadn't still thought her so beautiful.

“I looked you up” she said when they, accidentally, were alone in the kitchen. “Security transport hold-ups, that was your specialty. And guess what, there was one, very recently, a few towns over.”

As far as threats went, it was a fairly empty one. 

“What else did you read?” he said, meeting her gaze. 

He'd been the suspect in a couple of murders, a few of them he had committed. It was all in there, if she had really accessed his file. 

“Stay away from me” she said.

He didn't bother replying to that. She was a cop, what had he been thinking? 

Robin left before he did. He helped Talia get the dishwasher loaded. She glanced at him.

“A bit young for you, don't you think?” she said. “And she's a police officer. I don't think it would be a good idea.”

Hearing her say those words made him feel so stupid. 

He went to the bar. Talia had given him the address and he did it for her sake, more than anything else. 

The man who owned it was maybe in his fifties, wore glasses and had a mustache. His gaze only lingered for a fraction of a second on the scar.

“You're Bane, Talia's brother?” he said, holding out his hand. “I'm Gordon.”

He was an ex-cop. Talia had left that out. The job seemed straightforward enough, tending the bar, making sure unruly guests either calmed down or took it outside. The pay was shitty, but he hadn't expected anything else. If he needed cash he could go a few rounds in the boxing ring. 

It wasn't the monotony, or even the lack of money, that troubled him. It was the people. He felt as if they were staring at him. Gordon was all right, though. It took Bane only a little while to figure out that he was doing a bit of business on the side, selling contraband alcohol. Bane knew how to keep his mouth shut. 

During daytime people sometimes came in for a coffee. There was no Starbucks on this block, so coffee business was pretty good. And the owner being an ex-cop... well, it was natural his former colleagues brought him business. 

Bane hadn't expected to react so strongly when he saw her. He had seen her at Talia's, after all. Maybe it was the uniform. Yeah, that did nothing to him, or so he tried to tell himself. It was strange, seeing cops normally filled him with dislike, but she looked good. 

He made their coffees, meeting her gaze because he refused to not do it. To think that he had slept with her felt unreal. He felt regret that he had screwed it up so bad, but seeing her like this also reminded him that it was impossible to begin with. Except, right now he was just a guy, working in a bar. 

She didn't speak to him, not that day. But she came back, in civilian clothes, another day. He was hauling boxes from the alley out back, just dropped off by the delivery van, and she came through the back door, clearly having been allowed by Gordon to walk straight through.

“You work here now?” she said. 

He just looked at her. It was a stupid question. She was standing in the door, in the way.

“Listen” she said. “I get that you panicked, or something...”

He did not want to talk about this. Not here, not now, not ever. 

“But you don't do that to someone, that's not cool” she said.

He looked at her, a head shorter than him, and those dark eyes looking up and meeting his. 

“You don't have anything to say?” she said. 

What could he say. 

“I'm making a complete prat of myself here” she said. “For you.”

“I'm not worth it.”

“Look, Talia's told me some stuff, about how things were when you grew up, and that your dad kicked you out...”

No. He did not want to do this. She had to stop.

“I have work to do” he said, and then, because he felt too bad, and she was standing right there, looking at him. “Can you come back later?”

“Do you mean you want another booty-call?”

“No.”

“You mean we can talk?”

“You can talk.”

She actually smiled a little then.


End file.
